1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to electronic mail systems and, more particularly, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for processing electronic mail within an electronic mail delivery system using an importance indicator.
2. Description of the Background Art
Electronic mail has found wide spread use for business and personal communications. For many people, electronic mail has become essential to fulfilling their communications requirements. However, this wide spread use has also raised a number of problems.
For example, in today""s business environment, many people are overloaded with the amount of electronic mail (e-mail) that they receive on a daily or even hourly basis. When reviewing e-mail, many users simply look at the person who sent the e-mail and the subject line to conclude if they need to read the message immediately or if reading the message can be delayed. This assessment as to the importance of the e-mail often leads to mistaken assumptions about which e-mail messages are most important and, as such, the assumptions can cost a business valuable time.
Although xe2x80x9curgentxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cfor your informationxe2x80x9d (FYI) attributes do exist in presently available electronic mail systems, these features are often under- or over-utilized. For example, some users routinely identify all their outgoing messages as urgent, while other users bombard recipients with FYI messages. Furthermore, when a user sees an urgent message, if they assume the message is primarily directed to someone else who also may have received the message, the user will not read the message immediately.
Therefore, a need exists in the art for a method and apparatus for processing electronic mail using an importance indicator.
The disadvantages associated with the prior art are overcome by a method and apparatus for processing electronic mail (e-mail) using an importance indicator such that a user can clearly identify which mail is important and should be viewed immediately. Specifically, one embodiment of the invention is a method of prioritizing electronic mail messages comprising receiving an electronic mail message and at least one associated control message, assigning an initial importance value to the received electronic mail message, updating the initial importance value with an updated importance value, where the updated importance value is determined using the at least one associated control message, and displaying the electronic mail message with the updated importance value.
Another embodiment of the invention provides a method of processing electronic mail comprising receiving an electronic mail message, manipulating the electronic mail message, and transmitting a control message to at least one other user to inform the at least one other user that the electronic mail message has been manipulated.
Another embodiment of the invention provides a signal-bearing medium containing a program that, when executed by one or more processors, performs steps of processing electronic mail. The steps comprises receiving an electronic mail message, manipulating the electronic mail message, and transmitting a control message to at least one other user to inform the at least one other user that the electronic mail message has been manipulated.